She only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he approached the door, by holding out her hand.

“I shall see you no more,” she said, in a very marked manner.  “This is our parting—­our parting, it may be for ever.  Will you try to forgive me, Percival, as heartily as I forgive you?”

His face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of perspiration broke out on his bald forehead.  “I shall come back,” he said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife’s farewell words had frightened him out of the room.

I had never liked Sir Percival, but the manner in which he left Lady Glyde made me feel ashamed of having eaten his bread and lived in his service.  I thought of saying a few comforting and Christian words to the poor lady, but there was something in her face, as she looked after her husband when the door closed on him, that made me alter my mind and keep silence.

At the time named the chaise drew up at the gates.  Her ladyship was right—­Sir Percival never came back.  I waited for him till the last moment, and waited in vain.

No positive responsibility lay on my shoulders, and yet I did not feel easy in my mind.  “It is of your own free will,” I said, as the chaise drove through the lodge-gates, “that your ladyship goes to London?”

“I will go anywhere,” she answered, “to end the dreadful suspense that I am suffering at this moment.”

She had made me feel almost as anxious and as uncertain about Miss Halcombe as she felt herself.  I presumed to ask her to write me a line, if all went well in London.  She answered, “Most willingly, Mrs. Michelson.”

“We all have our crosses to bear, my lady,” I said, seeing her silent and thoughtful, after she had promised to write.

She made no reply—­she seemed to be too much wrapped up in her own thoughts to attend to me.

“I fear your ladyship rested badly last night,” I remarked, after waiting a little.

“Yes,” she said, “I was terribly disturbed by dreams.”

“Indeed, my lady?” I thought she was going to tell me her dreams, but no, when she spoke next it was only to ask a question.

“You posted the letter to Mrs. Vesey with your own hands?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Did Sir Percival say, yesterday, that Count Fosco was to meet me at the terminus in London?”

“He did, my lady.”

She sighed heavily when I answered that last question, and said no more.

We arrived at the station, with hardly two minutes to spare.  The gardener (who had driven us) managed about the luggage, while I took the ticket.  The whistle of the train was sounding when I joined her ladyship on the platform.  She looked very strangely, and pressed her hand over her heart, as if some sudden pain or fright had overcome her at that moment.

“I wish you were going with me!” she said, catching eagerly at my arm when I gave her the ticket.